Dora on Trial

Dora had been with me six months already when Roger Taylor from the Seeing Eye arrived. Six months had been long enough for Pandora to take on the endearing nickname Dora. Long enough for her to come up with some bad habits, too. It all started, I think, on an unusually hot day that summer. I stepped onto our porch with Dora to start our daily walk. Realizing how hot and humid it was, she crouched down to the floor and refused to work. I don't like the heat much, either. "You know, you're right!" I told Dora. We turned around and went back into the house.

From that day forward, whatever the weather, Dora tested me every time we started a walk. I'd pick up her harness and command "Forward!", and she'd refuse. She'd crouch down on the sidewalk instead. I'd go into my regular routine, using all the appropriate leash corrections I'd been taught. Dora would often respond by wriggling out of her collar. I had to grope for her skin to keep her from running off.

Dora was not only my first Seeing Eye Dog, she was my first dog. I had little sense of what was acceptable or normal behavior for a Seeing Eye Dog. And I could only guess whether our problems were related to Pandora's nature or to my handling of her.

Mike pleaded with me to call the Seeing Eye for help. I was reluctant. Didn't want them to se me as a failure. But finally I gave in.

I felt the cuff of a long-sleeved shirt when I shook Roger Taylor's hand. Not good attire for an Illinois Indian Summer.

"Do you want a glass of water? Or iced tea?" I asked once he stepped inside our front door. "Or would you like to change into a T-shirt?"

"No, ma'am," Roger answered quickly. "I came to work with you and Pandora. I want to get right to work." So that's what we did. Or, I should say, that's what Roger and I did. Pandora, as usual, did everything she could to avoid working. She crouched on the ground when I told her to go forward, she lolly-gagged, she pulled to the side as if she had to pee. A walk that should have taken ten minutes ended up taking almost an hour. Eventually we made it the five blocks to an air-conditioned mall. Once we found a table at the food court, Dora dove under it and stretched her body down on the cool concrete floor. Roger bought us a couple of cold sodas, and we filled a collapsible bowl with water for Dora.

"Well," I asked once we were all settled with our drinks. "What do you think? Is it just too hot to expect a dog with a black coat like Dora's to work? Am I not saying my commands sharply enough? Do you think it's because I call her Dora now instead of Pandora, do you think that's confusing her?"

Roger was quiet for a few seconds. I figured he was trying to come up with a good response. Actually, he was puffing on a cigarette. I heard a sharp exhale just before he answered. "It really doesn't matter why she's acting this way," he told me. "She just doesn't want to work."

Roger had tried a few tricks and techniques on our walk to the mall, but none of them had been effective. Nothing I'd been doing wrong, he said, to explain Dora's dismal work ethic.

After asking me a few questions, Roger finally said the obvious. "I think it'd be best if I take her back to the Seeing Eye."

I agreed. It didn't matter whether it was my fault or Pandora's fault or the trainer's fault. It probably wasn't anybody's fault. If I couldn't trust her, what was the point? Pandora would have to go back, and I'd have to get a new dog.

"Will you bring a replacement dog out to me," I asked Roger, "or do I have to go back with you for retraining?" I didn't know if I could go back to the Seeing Eye the very next day. Who would take Gus off the bus after school? Mike had to work every day. And what about my job?

Roger's answer stopped my mind from racing. He told me I wouldn't be able to go back with him and Pandora. "You'll have to wait until there is another opening in the training schedule," he said, "and then come back to the Seeing Eye as a retrain."

I didn't know what to say. I hated the thought of investing all that time and love again in another dog. Despite her poor working behavior, I had grown to really love Pandora, and I knew that she liked me, too. She never got over her jealousy of Gus, but I thought it was cute the way she'd roll over and beg for attention every time I pampered Gus instead of her. I had taught her to find my slippers in the morning, and I loved to make her jump for toys that I held way over my head.

Still, I knew Roger was right. I wanted to talk, to say something, anything. But I knew if I tried to speak I would start to cry. So I just lowered my eyes toward my hands, folded on the plastic tabletop.

Roger broke the silence.

"You don't have to send her back," he said. "You know, she is your dog."

It was then that the tears came. Roger handed me a tissue, we finished our sodas, and I got ready to head back to the house. Following Dora's leash from my ankle to her collar, I gave her a scratch on the head and told her to come. She sprang to her feet. I directed my body to the mall's exit door and said, "Pandora, forward!" She pulled me forward so quickly that Roger couldn't keep up with us. As if auditioning for the Seeing Eye promotional video, she went directly to the door and stopped perfectly in front of the handle.

"Did someone sneak you a new dog while I wasn't looking?" Roger asked as soon as he caught up.

I didn't answer; maybe it was the air conditioning and the cold drink of water that had revived her. I was sure she'd slow down again once we got outside in the heat.

But she didn't. I could only conclude that the bitch had been eavesdropping from under the table. She'd always been more enthusiastic about going home than going out, but she hadn't pulled me like this since we'd walked through the shopping mall with Miss Early at the Seeing Eye. Did she really understand that she was one day away from being sent back to New Jersey? One day away from failing in her mission as a guide dog?

Roger was as astonished as I was when we got back home so quickly.

"She can work, can't she?" he exclaimed. But that one short trip hadn't convinced him she would continue to work like that. Roger would be staying overnight in a local hotel and would return in the morning. While he was gone, he said, I should think about what I wanted to do. "Talk to your husband about it tonight, hash it out," he counseled, "really think about your future with this dog."

The next morning I told Roger I couldn't let Dora go. He gave no direct response, just asked to use the phone. "I'll be extending my stay in Urbana for a couple more days," I heard him say, "We need some extra work."

And we worked.

This time Dora worked, too. Roger tightened her collar so that she'd actually feel the weak-armed leash corrections I gave her. He showed me how to tighten the collar around her ears right from the start of our walks and not loosen it until she was trotting at a good pace.

He showed me a different way to hold the harness and leash from what I'd learned earlier, a style that would constantly remind Dora that I was back there and wanted to move along. At the Seeing Eye, the dogs were taught to stop at every curb, whether down curbs or up. Roger told me to quit making Dora stop at the up curbs.

"Notice the way she slows down in the middle of the street as she crosses intersections?" he asked. You bet I did. It made me nervous when we were at busy streets; I was always afraid that the light would change while we were in the middle of the intersection and we'd get hit.

"She's anticipating the stop she has to make at the up curb," Roger explained. "So she starts slowing down in the middle of the street to get ready to stop."

He told me not only to quit stopping at up curbs, but also to praise her lavishly once she made the step up. That way she'd start hurrying across the streets just to receive praise once she crossed successfully. After three days of hard, hot work Roger had to leave for his next case. No teary goodbyes here, though. "You two are gonna make it," was all he said.

On our way back home from Roger's hotel, I told Dora to go forward at a four-way stop. Just then, a car pulled up right in front of us. Dora disobeyed my command, stood still and refused to let me cross. "Traffic check!" I heard Roger's voice yell from the car in front of us. He laughed, said one last quick goodbye, and drove off.